BLESSING OR CURSING?

“Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.”  ‎(Deuteronomy 29:9)

There are fundamental moral laws.  Keeping them brings blessing and transgressing them brings cursing.  It is a matter of life and death. 

A man might say, “I don’t agree with the law of gravity.”  He then climbs atop a skyscraper and says, “I am free to choose.  I reject this law that cramps my style.”  When he steps out into the air, he has made a choice; he is not free, however, concerning the consequences of his choice.  The decision will not be a good one.  That illustration of the physical laws that govern the universe is likewise a reality in the spiritual dimension of moral law.

God made a covenant with Israel.  He promised them blessing as a nation, if they would obey His laws.  Furthermore, He gave them warning that disobedience would bring disaster.  God had demonstrated His grace.  How faithful He had been in bringing them into liberty—their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt!  The Lord had provided for them in the desert and preserved them from their enemies.  His sovereign choice was to prosperity them as a people.  The implications of their response would have far-ranging implications.  God was establishing them in the land, but with the sobering caution that to turn from Him was to choose discipline.  His love would not let them go.  They were His people.  Yet, that would not mean they could presume upon His grace.  Choices have consequences, so they must choose wisely.  Sadly, Israel has often chosen folly, has suffered greatly, is currently in peril, and the worst is still to come.  All this is not to obliterate them, but to overcome their sinfulness until they make another willful choice—repentance.

This should speak to the covenant people called Christians today.  God chastens those whom He loves.  We are recipients of amazing grace and mercy—and God will not revoke those.  Even when we fail Him, He will be faithful.  His faithfulness also includes the fire of refining—to purge the dross from our lives.

There is a national application as well.  Israel was given a land and liberty—free to choose as a people to be governed by God.  If they chose to give themselves to gods of their own fashioning—rejecting the Lord’s moral laws for the degraded passions of paganism, then God would make a choice too—and the consequences would be severe.  America seems oblivious to God’s goodness in the past.  Today we are codifying wickedness.  Perversion is paraded and filth is flaunted.  We are biting the hand that feeds us.  As the folly of such choices becomes evident in multiplying disaster, perhaps we too will fall on our knees and cry out to God.  He has been, is, and forever will be the Hope of a nation.